Rs 3257 Crore And Counting: Four IPL Teams Invest Massive Amount In This Franchise Competition

English county cricket clubs facing hardships will get financial boost after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), with investments from four well-known IPL franchises, has been able to raise GBP 975 million by selling stakes in eight teams in their flagship event 'The Hundred'. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has entered into exclusivity agreements with eight parties in the final stage of the process to secure private expertise and investment into The Hundred's teams. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries (owners of Mumbai Indians), the GMR Group (co-owners of Delhi Capitals), Sanjiv Goenka's RPSG (owners of Lucknow Super Giants) and Sun TV Network (owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad) have all bought stakes in four of the eight franchises.

And their cumulative investments would be to the tune of nearly GBP 300 million, which is nearly 30 per cent of the valuation raised through sell of stakes.

Other investors include Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Sundar Pichai (Google), Shantanu Narayan (Adobe) and Satyan Gajwani (co-founder MLC)-backed Cricket Investor Holdings Limited which now co-owns London Spirits housed at the Lord's. The consortium shelled the maximum amount of GBP 144.5 million to buy stakes.

Knighthead Capital Management will own Birmingham Phoenix (Warwickshire), Indian-American businessman Sanjay Govil's Washington Freedom has bought stakes in Welsh Freedom (Glamorgan) while EPL giants Chelsea's owner Todd Boehly's company Cain International, along with Ares Management Credit, has bought 49 per cent in Trent Rockets (Nottinghamshire). Out of GBP 975 million, the ECB plans to put back a whopping GBP 520 million pounds back for the development of county, grassroots and recreational cricket. While GBP 50